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Afghanistan

In 2014, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan conducted two rounds of presidential elections. Abudullah Abdullah won the first round with 45% of the votes. However, as required under Afghan election law, a second round of balloting was conducted between the two candidates with the highest number of votes, Abudullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, since neither received a majority. Ghani won the second round on14 June with 56.44 % of the vote.

Two days later, Abdullah sent a letter to the IEC alleging that sufficient fraud had occurred to affect the outcome. He then withdrew from the electoral process on 18 June and accused the IEC, the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) and President Hamid Karzai of manipulating the process. He also demanded the resignation of the chief electoral officer, who resigned on 23 June.

On 29 June the IEC audited 930 of the 22,828 polling stations and on 7 July it announced that Ghani had won with 56.44 per cent of the valid votes. The following day, Abdullah announced victory and threatened to form a parallel government. However, mediation by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, dissipated this threat. Instead, both candidates agreed on 12 July to support a 100 per cent audit of the second-round results, conducted by the IEC and supervised by the UN. The outcome of the audit would determine the presidency and vice-presidency and both candidates agreed to accept this outcome.

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International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)